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Burtynksky primarily photographs landscapes after humans have used it either to abstract raw materials (think mines, quarries, logging and oil pumps ) in order to make a product or to store these products at the end of their life cycle (landfills of tires, engine parts, oil drums etc.). Front and center in these beautifully rendered often otherworldly scenes is the environmental damage we inflict on our one and only planet. But he also shows the people, or sometimes just the eivdence of the people, at the bottom of the process who work hand to earth, often in third-world countries and often in hazardous conditions so that we can have our cell phones and car batteries. The photographs merely hint at the quality of life of these workers who are forced into this brand of manual labor out of what we must assume is necessity